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Strategy and the Structure of Interdependent Decision-Making Mechanisms
(1967) Ostrom, Elinor
From p. 54: The paradigm presented ... begins to sketch in the type of analysis that one could undertake when examining the affect of decision-making structures on individual behavior. It is hoped that the paradigm will be of help in stimulating further theoretical and empirical work on the relation between the structure of decision-making mechanisms and the strategies of individuals employ when attempting to reach solutions to problems through the utilization of different structures."
On Dissemination
(1976) Ostrom, Elinor; Nevin, Gillian
From p. 3: "The Comprehensive Report for this project, Patterns of Metropolitan Policing, by Elinor Ostrom, Roger B. Parks, and Gordon P. Whitaker with chapters by Frances Bish, John McIver, Steven Mastrofski, and Elaine Sharp has been accepted for publication by two commercial publishers, Ballinger Books and Lexington Books. Indiana University Foundation is currently negotiating a final contract for this volume with the NSF legal staff. The final volume will be published early in 1977. This section contains a summary of the Comprehensive Report."
The Need for Multiple Indicators in Measuring the Output of Public Agencies
(1973) Ostrom, Elinor
"The need for more valid and realizable means of measuring the output of government services at all levels of government is a critical problem for policy analysts. It is particularly important at the municipal level, where such outputs and their variations have the most direct impact upon citizens, and where sophisticated measurement and evaluation capabilities are least likely to be found."
Public Economy Organization and Service Delivery
(1977) Ostrom, Elinor; Ostrom, Vincent
"Decision makers in the Detroit area are faced with the consideration of changing the organization of governmental units as one means of increasing both the efficiency and equity of urban services delivery. However, a key question is whether a decrease (or an increase) in governmental fragmentation will affect financial capability to deliver equitable and efficient urban services. "The Question cannot be answered without a well-developed and empirically based theory of institutional analysis and design. For years, conventional theories have been based on untested hypothesis about the relationship between the size and fragmentation of local governmental units on the one hand, the efficient and equitable delivery of urban services on the other. This has been challenged in the past twenty years by a growing number of economists and political scientists who have made considerable advances both theoretically and empirically. Their work has not yet produced a completed, accepted, and empirically validated theory of institutional analysis and design. The basic elements have, however, been worked out, and considerable empirical investigation supports hypothesis derived form this theoretical tradition. In this paper we will first provide a basic overview of this developing theory of institutional analysis. Any theory has its own language, and to understand it, one must first understand the basic terms. Thus, we shall first define and discuss some elemental concepts that are essential for understanding the approach. Then we will examine some opportunities and problems of complex structures, and lastly, examine some implication of this approach for the Southeastern Michigan area."
Constitutional Decision-Making: A Logic for the Organization of Collective Enterprises
(1968) Ostrom, Elinor
"In examining the outcomes of constitution making at the local level, political scientists and economists have often despaired at the resultant crazy-quilt pattern of local governmental units. One might also argue that despair should be directed at the lack of an appropriate logic to explain behavior in the on-going political process. Market behavior also appears as highly disorganized, until viewed with the help of a logic for explaining the order resulting from simultaneous, inter-related decision making in a market place. When we have developed an adequate logic or calculus to explain the behavior of local governmental systems, we may be surprised at the extent of order we can discover. We should then be better prpared to propose improvements in the on-going political process. For some time now a literature has been growing at the fringes of political science and economics which provides the beginnings of a new logic of collective action. From these theoretical foundations, one can begin to develop a relatively coherent logic of constitutional behavior at the local level. During this discussion of the logic of establishing collective enterprises, illustrations related to the management of a ground water basin will be used. The problem of ground water basin management is particularly useful in helping to understand the logic of constitution making since it is a classic example of a common-pool resource--the actions of any producer affect all other producers utilizing the basin. Secondly, the issues are relatively clear-cut and easily determined by an outside observer. Problems of ground water basin management are not in the main affected by party politics, race relations and other divisive issues of the day. In essence, one can assume all other things are held constant while examining the behavior of individuals related to this one set of events. This is as close to a laboratory situation as we can get when we are interested in the behavior of on-going systems. This type of analysis could also be applied to many others problems of metropolitan areas including housing, sanitation, recreation, and transportation."
Performance Measurement in Practice: A Methodology Gone Amuck!
(1979) Ostrom, Elinor
"'Evaluation research,' 'productivity measurement,' 'Management science,' and "program budgeting are different names given to closely related techniques all of which involve measuring organizational or program performance in one way or another. Much is to be learned from these approaches in any effort to to address the conceptual issues involved in measuring the performance of public agencies such as the police. However, while the early work in these traditions stressed the iterative and learning nature of the enterprise, more recent applications have routinized the process into defined steps. Blind acceptance by evaluation researchers of these reconstituted approach hes to performance measurement can have serious consequences for the quality and usefulness of the work produced."
Public Entrepreneurship: A Case Study in Ground Water Basin Management
(1965) Ostrom, Elinor
"The traditional literature of political science and economics has given little consideration to the strategy used by individuals in organizing public enterprises to provide public goods and services. Economists have long been concerned with entrepreneurship, but have largely confined their analysis of entrepreneurship to the private market economy. Political scientists most often take a governmental agency as given and rarely investigate the problems of undertaking new public enterprises. The perspective of public entrepreneurship was taken in this study in order to better understand the process of launching new public enterprises and of devising a public enterprise system to undertake a ground water basin management program. The study was based primarily upon the use of documentary materials. Increasing salt water intrusion in a ground water basin was the stimulus which evoked the efforts of entrepreneurs to seek public solutions to their common problem. The physical and institutional conditions confronting water producers in the West Coastal Basin of southern California as they began to organize for public action in 1945 is described in an introductory section. Next, the strategies of those who functioned as public entrepreneurs are examined in a case study which involves (1)the organization of a water producers' and users' association to function as a forum for the consideration of common problems, (2) the creation of a municipal water district to provide a supplemental surface supply, (3)the use of litigation to achieve a limited pro-rata rationing of the local ground water resources, (4) the development of institutional arrangements to test the effectiveness of a fresh-water barrier against the sea and to place a prototype barrier into operation along a one-mile section of the exposed coastline, (5) the design and creation of a water replenishment district as a ground water basin management enterprise and (6) the development of a management plan involving the coordinated action of several public water agencies to assure the continued use of ground water supplies in conjunction with imported surface supplies. Finally, the performance of this public enterprise system was evaluated in relation to its capacity (1) to realize its physical objectives, (2) to secure operational agreements with other agencies and (3) to develop an optimal program in terms of economic efficiency. Physical objectives and operating agreements have been attained but a non- optimum program has been developed. The institutional arrangements implicit in the structure of this ground water basin management system have not motivated ground water producers to take full account of the social costs of their actions. By developing a more economic source of water supply than the alternative sources now being developed by state agencies this local ground water basin management program will, to that extent, be an important long-term force contributing to the more efficient use of water resources in Southern California."
Multi-Mode Measures: From Potholes to Police
(1975) Ostrom, Elinor
"On Palm Sunday one year ago, I found myself walking down an Indianapolis street, carrying a yardstick and dashing out between passing cars to measure the potholes in the street. Why would any sane person dash out onto a busy street to risk their life to measure some holes in the ground? I must confess that I asked myself that question several times that day and other days while I helped develop our 'unobtrusive' measures of road conditions. The answer to that question takes a somewhat long route but will be the focus of this presentation."
Urban Policy Analysis: An Institutional Approach
(1975) Ostrom, Elinor
From the introduction: The term 'study guide' is indefinite enough to require an explanation of who might find this volume useful and why. This study guide draws upon a large notebook of materials I originally prepared for the 1973-74 National Science Foundation Chautauqua-Type Short Course program for college teachers. I filled that notebook with materials college teachers could use in courses on public policy analysis, urban politics, and social sciences methodology. "During the summer of 1974, I was asked by the American Association for the Advancement of Science to prepare a study guide from the materials contained in the large notebook. This volume was then issued as a test edition and used in conjunction with the Chautauqua course I taught during the 1974-75 academic year. The comments of a number of readers of that edition have been helpful in substantially revising the study guide for the current version. "A variety of individuals may find this guide useful. The guide could be used as the textbook for a section of a course on urban politics, metropolitan government, public policy analysis, or social science methodology. The guide could be used for an independent readings course by an advanced undergraduate or entering graduate student. The guide might also be useful to a group of citizens appointed to a local government study commission who wish to do some basic readings before undertaking their own study in their own community."
Political Economy Approach to the Analysis of Institutional Behavior and Consequences
(1979) Kiser, Larry L.; Ostrom, Elinor
From p. 1: "Undertaking a synthesis of work in political economy for a Handbook of Political Behavior is a massive task. The potential literature for such a review is far too extensive for the limitations of a single chapter. Moreover, the term political economy is used to characterize such a wide variety of academic work that no single chapter could provide a coherent synthesis of all the different perspectives. A chapter-length discussion must be more selective. "This chapter focuses entirely on the political economy literature which starts with the individual as a basic unit of analysis and which conceptualizes collectives of individuals as artifacts crafted to increase individuals access to available outcomes. Literature examining the effects of different institutional arrangements on the conduct and behavior of individuals and literature evaluation consequences is emphasized."

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